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I'm going to wait for my upgrade version to arrive (I paid for two-day shipping, hoping to get it by Friday), but based on the Aperture pages and some "first impressions" posts by others, here are my first impressions.

• The all-in-one inspector looks nice. You can't work in all those regions at the same time anyway, and you rarely switch back and forth between them regularly, so minimizing their real estate is a win.
• The better full-screen view (more tools in the toolbar, improved film strip popup) is a win as well.
• All Projects looks like iPhoto's "events" thing. Eh. I don't know how frequently I'll be using that. Ditto the iPhoto browser. I use iPhoto for my JPEGs (from the SD550) and Aperture for my RAW (5D) shots.
• I've heard that not only is general use much faster, but that importing photos from your flash cards is faster too.
• Search was improved? Good. But I honestly don't know how it could have not been improved. I wonder if Stack handling has been improved in the many ways people have suggested it could be.
• Background exporting FTW!
• You can use the loupe while making adjustments. Good for certain functions like sharpening.
• Updated camera profiles and the "RAW 2.0" converter should be good (Recovery, Vibrancy, Definition, etc.).
• Lens info in metadata (and thus searchable)? Cool. Lightroom's had that from the start, after all.
• Improved cloning via "Retouch" tool looks awesome. Cloning may become a thing of the past.

Vignette/De-vignette - eh. Glad to have it, but I don't even think it ever made any of my wish lists.

• You're no longer limited to the six colors Apple's pre-selected, and can now instead do a semi-targeted adjustment, I hear. W00t!

Unfortunately, I see nothing, nothing about plugins! Harumph. The word "plug" doesn't even appear on the 100 Features page.

And with that, I'll stop.

Update: Image editing plugins appear, in fact, to be a possibility. Why Apple doesn't really mention this is beyond me (do we have to wait six months for an SDK or something?), because this is BIG NEWS:

I think it's important to mention one of the greatest new features of Aperture 2.0, but the one that's likely (at first) to be overlooked. Apple has added the ability to create editing plug-ins for Aperture, which will, over time, revolutionize the program. Having an edit plug-in interface means that Aperture users will be able to do just about anything to their images. It'll be possible to create plug-ins that replicate film effects, add borders, allow for selective edits like dodging and burning - the possibilities are pretty endless. For the purist who only wants to focus on Aperture's image editing tools, there's no need to ever add a plug-in, but for those who have been hankering to extend the program's capabilities - your wish has been granted.

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